Wazzup Pilipinas News and Events

Tuesday, July 8, 2014

Tanghalang Ateneo's 36th Season All Set to Open with "Middle Finger" on August 1

Wazzup Pilipinas!

Tanghalang Ateneo, the longest-running theater company of the Loyola Schools of the Ateneo de Manila University, celebrates its 36th season with the theme “Navigating Identities”. The company aims to stage plays that center on man’s exploration and need to find himself and his place in the world.

The season opener will feature Han Ong’s ‘MIDDLE FINGER,’ an adaptation of the famous German play ‘Spring Awakening’ by Frank Wedekind.

Featuring a bilingual script using the original by Han Ong and a Filipino translation by Ronan B. Capinding, MIDDLE FINGER is a coming-of-age story centered on two Filipino teenagers, Jakob Rodriguez and Benjamin Lunga, studying in a Catholic school in America. In a world dominated by adults and social constructs, they attempt to find control and establish themselves as individuals.

Guelan Luarca shall play the role of Jakob Rodriguez, a headstrong and rebellious adolescent boy trying hard to break away from the boundaries set for him by the adults in his life.

Joe-Nel Garcia shall play the role of Benjamin Lunga, the best friend of Jakob, this average student only wants the good and simple things but is suddenly faced with the hard reality of life.

Wazzup Pilipinas!

Jean Marc Cordero discovered dance through theater arts. As a Theater Arts major at the Philippine High School for the Arts, he performed the lead in the dance-drama Ang Hatol ng Guhit na Bilog, which was collaborated on by Agnes Locsin, Shamaine Buencamino, and Biag Gaongen, and performed at the 8th Asian Arts Festival in China. With Tanghalang Pilipino, he performed in The Slanting Dance of the Buluklik Hawks directed by Fernando Josef and choreographed by Agnes Locsin.

At age 18, he joined BP as a scholar with Noordin Jumalon as his teacher, and was promoted to apprentice a year later. He became a company member in 2007, and his training continued under Augustus Damian III and Alan Hineline. He has since performed in all of BP’s productions including principal roles in La Revolucion Filipina, Coppelia, The Nutcracker, Peter Pan, Crisostomo Ibarra, and Don Quixote among others. He has a Bachelor of Performing Arts Major in Dance from De La Salle—College of Saint Benilde.

He competed at the 2007 New York International Ballet Competition and became the first Filipino male to reach the semifinals at the 2010 USA International Ballet Competition. He won the 2010 Gawad Buhay Outstanding Male Lead Performer in a Modern Dance Production for his work in Crisostomo Ibarra and the award for Outstanding Male Featured Performance for Sleeping Beauty in 2011.

Wazzup Pilipinas!

Wow ! A rap-through musical ? Yes, yes, yes .....

Presented by the CCP and Tanghalang Pilipino, this original Filipino musical is inspired by the Napoles scandal. This will highlight the struggle of a group of young Filipino student leaders to check and police their own ranks against their own early inclination and natural lust for power and the strong temptation toward materialism, corruption and dishonesty. A reality search for the future President, senators and congressmen of our country, hopefully, all of a different breed from all those in our midst right now.

All songs are in the form of the rap song, all dialogue happen like a fliptop battle. Taking from local hiphop culture, the dance and movement that are part of this story’s telling is distinctly of the present, even as it refuses to fall into the trap of foreign mimicry.

Working with local hiphop culture’s roots in speaking out against oppression and creating a community, and inspired by the songs of Gloc-9 and its ability to critically engage with issues that are important and relevant, Kleptomaniacs is the story of our common and current struggle against the need and hunger that corruption breeds.